BTW the Great Shape session - Dec 19?  - is listed in Craig's sessionography but it was recorded as a Heroes session.  The only way we know it was a Great Shape session is because the instrumentation matches up perfectly with the Great Shape section on one of the Durrie Parks acetates of Heroes - I described the Great Shape piece (secondhand, I've never heard it) and Craig identified the session it had to come from.

He Gives Speeches - not convinced this was meant as an insert into Wonderful, for a few reasons:

1. It was on a tape with Wonderful titled something like (don't have my Smile primer with me) "Nu Songs by Brian and Van Dyke" - note the plural.

2. The August Wonderful doesn't have a break for an insert, and neither does the January one - it's a continuous piece of music.  Wonderful 3 in April does, however, as does the Smiley version.  Jan Wonderful has a vocal tag.  So there's no evidence musically that a break was contemplated in August for the song.

3. I don't think the Speeches lyrics go with the lyrics of Wonderful, although I respect the fact that you do.  The probable insert for Wonderful 3, recorded the same day, was the piano/group vocal Child is Father of the Man, which is a much better thematic fit to Wonderful.

That is the kind of thing I was referring to.  Very well done, whoever is responsible!

This is the first time the TNT show has been released on DVD, so I'm excited about that - Donovan, Phil Spector, Ike and Tina Turner, the Ronettes, Lovin' Spoonful, the Byrds!

I was referring to the June WMT's - obviously Brian did a remake for Smiley, but the three different variations from June don't fit together if, as someone has suggested, they were meant to be edited into some sequence like the Heroes Part 2 "sections."

This board banned the C-man along with many others. There was a time when there were posters with inside knowledge of the Beach Boys world,but they've left or been banned.  So,all we're left with is Mike Love bashing and "What is Brian's favorite color?"

 Good bye

What is Brian's favorite color?

I guess since the initial WMT was short, and then we have a handful of alternate iterations, my imagination tells me that WMT was always meant to be a simple song made up of different modular variations (just like the H&V's Gee/Part 2/Part 3/ part 4 etc). 

*Although, the Smiley version does regress back to the April VTs in E at the end, so it is possible... 

KInd of like "Can't Wait Too Long" is a series of variations . . . how to put the WMT's together so they all flow one to the other is problematic though. 

There's a version on TSS that's 1 and a half minutes that corresponds to the "fast version" I believe.

Just the initial version which is so short (30 seconds or so) that it seems like it was meant to be part of another song.  Maybe that section was meant to be an "intro" to the longer WMT version?

In case you may not have been around, I am re-posting these long lost Smile lyrics that I discovered quite a few years back. Their exact origin is unknown even to me, but I can testify that they are 100% legitimate. I'm not at liberty to say who the author is reputed to be, except to say that, in very faint ink, I discovered the initials 'ML', barely legible, down in the right hand corner of the manuscript. Make of this what you will:

THE ELEMENTS

Fire, water, earth, and air,
Elements are everywhere.
On the beach, your car, and pad,
They’re not just a passing fad.
All around the world you see
The Elements in harmony.

The wind blows through her long blonde hair,
I smell her perfume in the AIR.
A girl like her is cool to find-
Mother Nature blows my mind.

Old Yeller is my shovel ride.
We’re tearin’ down the countryside.
Like Mother EARTH, it moves my soul,
When I’m moving the earth, and digging a hole.

FIRE hot as the summer sun,
Makes me think of fun fun fun.
Here comes that shiny red fire truck,
Guess that flame’s run out of luck.

Like waves that come a-crashin’ down,
Near sunny Honolulu town,
WATER’s cooling down the heat,
A glass of it just can’t be beat.

Fire, water, earth, and air,
Elements are every where,
At the local high school hop,
The drive-in and the record shop.
All around the world you see
The Elements in Harmony.

Ha!  Hilarious.  Why didn't Brian ask Mike instead of Van to write additional lyrics for BWPS?

But where does With Me Tonight fit?  As an insert (WMT 3 above), or a fade (2 or 3)?  Assuming WMT was planned as part of the song in the first place - thematically it doesn't make much sense.

I've wondered about the two Eat a Lot choruses - did Brian want to have the fast/slow as chorus 1 and 2, or was the slow chorus (chorus 2) meant as a remake of the chorus and it was supposed to be the only chorus for the song?

In June the With Me Tonight session - This was recorded at a Vegetables session (I don't have TSS with me to check on that), but are you implying that With Me Tonight was going to be a Bside for a Vegetables single?  Because by June the idea (in April) of releasing Vegetables as the single had been abandoned and Heroes was the planned single, finished in June.

By the way loving your enthusiasm for all things Smile!!

The June '67 sessions for "With Me Tonight" were logged with the AFM as "Vegetables" as the title (I think one of them even read "Vegetables (You're With Me Tonight)". As to why, I couldn't say.

That's very interesting.  To me that suggests With Me Tonight was to be a section of Vegetables - either a middle 8 or break or a "tag."  The three minute version though it's hard to see what that could be other than its' own track, unless Brian got carried away and it was a fade that went longer than it would have appeared on the song.

As far as reel 75, it seems to match up visually with the AB clip, but the description is pretty nonspecific, really just Brian playing the piano and it being dark (not unusual in a studio), which certainly could be a completely different time.  And if the Inside Pop reels were the source, shouldn't they have the audio with the film - it's printed on the film, isn't it?

Could the "Do Wa Wa" vocals be backing vocals for the "Reconnected telephone direct dialing" lyrics of Cabinessence?  Of course we don't have any corresponding music tracking for that section.  I've been thinking lately that those lyrics were intended to go in the Who Ran the Iron Horse section like the "Truck Driving Man" lyrics, Telephone in the first chorus and Truck Driving in the second.  When Carl and Dennis worked on the song in 1968 they either intentionally left out those lyrics from the first chorus (which was a good move IMO) or they forgot/didn't know about them.

Here's some earlier reels (in terms of numbering, although 77, if it's the candelabra version of Brian singing Surf's Up at home that was used in Inside Pop actually was filmed after the Wonderful/Cab/Surf's Up session, Dec 17 vs. Dec 15):

(Page 1)

75 (signifying Reel #75)

1. hands to face CR angle
can't see hands pan to hands in dark
child Is the Father of man

2. Heroes & Villains plays
Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
sings open country song

Sunshine


76 Surf's up cu (or cw? or au?) CR
-> takes guts to catch wave
can visualize intervals on piano


77 x piano Surf's Up
PB

Surf's up candelabra shot CL

(Page 2)


83

1. engineer
2. pan up to Brian
3. board
4. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
(Above "who Ran" is the scratched out word "Hooray"
as if he wasn't sure what the words were.)
5. Wilson ? (judging, foda?!?!)
6. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
7. Do Wa Wa in circle
8. Wilson (shelving?!)
84 9. Let's work on microphone
boys around mike
Do wa

Comment:  the Do Wa Wa in circle is interesting - could this be an early version of the Water chant?  Also despite the track listing from Dec 10th it appears Great Shape is still part of Heroes (which goes along with the Dec 19th Shape session for Heroes and the Durrie Parks acetate), and Brian was perhaps considering My Only Sunshine as the fade for the song??

I would say the jury is out on how "controlled" Brian is by others - it depends on what you mean by controlled, and how willing Brian may be to let others make some decisions for him so he doesn't have to deal with it.  If you want some degree of control by others and allow it, is it really control or delegating?

I would say that Brian is "protected" by Melinda and her team - protected from unpleasant or what they believe would be unpleasant interactions, protected from situations that would adversely affect his mental health and his mood, protected from situations that would be bad for his physical health.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  And I believe Brian has the ability to do something he wants to do despite his "team" not necessarily thinking it a good idea, if he really wants to do it.

In June the With Me Tonight session - This was recorded at a Vegetables session (I don't have TSS with me to check on that), but are you implying that With Me Tonight was going to be a Bside for a Vegetables single?  Because by June the idea (in April) of releasing Vegetables as the single had been abandoned and Heroes was the planned single, finished in June.

By the way loving your enthusiasm for all things Smile!!

I would stick to songs recorded or started in 69-73, as I think that would better reflect an actual solo album at that time - 74 is transitional but I would use Barnyard Blues to get a 12th song. 75 plus is POB sessions.

Sound of Free
My Love Lives On
I'm Going Your Way
4th of July
Barnyard Blues
Cuddle Up

Lady
San Miguel
Make It Good
Barbara
"Dennis symphony" (whatever that happens to be)
Wouldn't It Be Nice to Live Again (with full coda)

They are reproduced on this board somewhere - maybe an admin could find the link?  If not, I have a copy I could post here.

The interviewer says Mike took the Beach Boys to court to get exclusive use of the name?  I don't remember that, he always had the license for the name.  He sued Al over Al's unauthorized use of the name.  Maybe I'm not remembering?

"Not true. There's a Vega-Tables With Me Tonight version, and the full song was recorded on Harpsichord in April or March."

Unfortunately this is double not true!  It was assumed the short With Me Tonight was recorded during the April Vegetables sessions because the bass line is essentially the same as the verses in Vegetables.  But c-man has dated all versions of WMT including this one and the longer harpsichord ones to June 67.  Check out the liner notes to Hawthorne and the sessionography in TSS.

Vocals were recorded Oct 10 with 6 Beach Boys for Wind Chimes, which is the only vocal session documented.  No mention of Brian singing a lead on the chorus, unless you are saying he is singing on the "bom bom bom" parts which he probably is.  It would be great to find the vocal session for Oct 10th, it seems we only have the finished multi-track - that would give us an idea of how finished the song was and if Brian was planning anything else for the song.  Vosse seems to think the acetate he heard was essentially finished.

The main chorus vocals  are on The Smile Sessions and on the Good Vibrations box.  To me it sounds like Vosse is describing the "bom, bom bom, bom bom bom bom bom bom" chorus we've all heard, but apparently on this lost acetate, instead of all the voices coming at once, he fades in the voices one at a time and gets them to sound like percussive instruments.  Think "bom" like a thump on a bass drum.  No, this mix was not on the Durrie Parks acetates.

The main chorus vocals are lost. Brian sang lead on vocals. And yeah, I like that idea of the "bom-bom bom-be-bom-bee" bringing in the other vocals. That's probably what he was talking about. I also suspect there were harmony vocals in the verses too that might've followed this patter. Another thing I think he might be mentioning, on the reference to changing rhythm, is the the false start with the chorus vocals we hear on some bootlegs. It's funny and it helps us transition to the different tempo in the chorus better.

How do we know Brian sang a lead vocal on the chorus?  Carl sang the verses.  No chorus lead vocal is on the tapes and session documentation isn't specific on who sang what.  And what were the lyrics on the chorus?  If there were lyrics, wouldn't those have ended up on the Smiley Wind Chimes?

OK, for the other missing lyrics/sessions:

4.  Surf's Up Part 2 instrumentation

There was a Surf's Up session Jan 23rd with 8 musicians that has been lost.  Was it for a Pt 2 or a remake of Pt 1?  Or for overdubs on to Brian's piano double track vocal version?  I would love it to be the latter but the session isn't noted as an "insert" or "overdub" so that's unlikely.

Following the Surf's Up session Brian recorded something called "Part One."  This WAS a “sweetening session” with strings.  The tape is missing from the archives.  Based on the title it could have been an overdub of Surf’s Up Part One, or perhaps a strangely named overdub for the Surf’s Up session immediately preceding it.  Although it came after the Surf’s Up session, Part One was given an earlier master number 57086.  What significance that has I have no idea.

5.  With Me Tonight with Bag of Tricks percussion

A former member of this forum has claimed to have heard this.  Where do you get the information that this was taped in late 1967?  Since the tape is missing and may not even exist (only one person has claimed to have heard it) and there is no session information for this, when or if it was taped is still shrouded in mystery.  Looking at the With Me Tonight versions we have, all seem to have been taped in June 67, none were recorded during the Smile sessions proper but for Smiley Smile.

6. Tones/Tune X

The track was recorded March 3, 1967 with 5 musicians at Sound Recorders, and vocals recorded March 13 (5 vocalists) also at Sound Recorders.  Session documentation (it's all in craig's sessionography in The Smile Sessions) shows lot of additional work was done on the song, all of which (including the vocals) has been lost.  The tape we do have and which appears on TSS is only the March 3 session, so we have no idea what happened March 15 (3 musicians at Western), March 31 (as Tune X)  (5 musicians at Sound Recorders), and April 11 (as Tones Part 3) (5 musicians at Western).  Since we have a "Part 3" we can assume this was being recorded in sections and was another multi-part song, which I find very strange if indeed this is Carl's song.  Why would Carl imitate the sectional recording method Brian was using for Smile when he could see how difficult that was making the completion of the album, and how Brian seemed to be spinning his wheels and not getting anywhere?  And the same goes for I Don't Know which apparently was also recorded in sections.

7.  The Air section 

Brian says it was a piano instrumental which they never finished.  He didn't say it was actually recorded - it could have been an instrumental he was writing and never finished.  Or it could have been recorded and the recording never finished.  What piano pieces were recorded during Smile without vocals added?  Dada, all the way back to December 66.  The Wind Chimes multi-piano tag, which was recorded for Wind Chimes but interestingly the article in Teen Set describing the piece in glowing terms - the "how does he do it?" piece written by Vosse presumably - does not mention Wind Chimes or it being for a particular song.  The Bicycle Rider piano theme (or "hold On") recorded Feb 15/16 for Heroes and Villains.  That's all I can come up with in terms of tapes in the archive.  There of course could be a missing tape but there should be studio session documentation and there isn't any for a piano instrumental.  It could have been recorded on a tape from another session, at the end, and been erased or taped over at some point.  In terms of extant tapes I think the December Dada is probably the most likely candidate but really I don't believe it was ever recorded.

I think it's POSSIBLE that if Al had followed the terms of the license, he may have granted approval to tour under the "Beach Boys family and friends" moniker.  Of Course that ship has long since sailed.